The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Governors have made several key appointments in the last two years to strengthen the leadership of the school further. You were appointed as headteacher in April 2015 and have appointed other leaders with specialisms and expertise in key areas to complement the leadership team. There have been several changes in staff since the last inspection. Leaders and governors have a shared vision which includes high expectations for everyone at Baschurch. They have an accurate view of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and ensure that effective systems are quickly put in place to address any areas for development. The teaching of mathematics rightly remains a priority for the school and is clearly cited within development plans. The newly appointed leader of mathematics is ensuring that teaching is more effective and systematically builds upon pupils’ prior learning. The most recent national assessments results for Year 6 pupils show an improvement in attainment in reading, writing and mathematics. From their different starting points, the large majority of current pupils in all year groups are making good progress and working at the expected standards for their age. You and your leaders are determined to raise aspirations for all pupils at Baschurch. Pupils have access to a wealth of visits and extra-curricular activities, both during and after the school day. Pupils speak enthusiastically about the opportunities available, including learning to play a musical instrument such as the ukulele, and performing to an audience. Pupils also enjoy the opportunity to compete with other schools at sporting events and were keen to inform me that they had recently won a schools football competition. Pupils behave well in lessons, at breaktimes and around school during unstructured periods. Pupils are welcoming, polite and show good manners at all times to adults and each other. All pupils understand how to follow the ‘Baschurch Way’. This clearly outlines the school’s high expectations for behaviour and conduct in and around school. Pupils are proud to receive certificates and then badges for being kind, using their manners and showing respect. Pupils are confident when sharing their learning and talking about how school teaches them to keep themselves safe. For example, they could talk about the different forms of bullying such as cyber bullying. Pupils knew what to do if this ever happened to them. They also knew to approach a ‘Friendship Buddy’ on the playground who would help them to sort out any minor disagreements. Further work is required to ensure that strategies to improve pupils’ progress are fully embedded. These include improving pupils’ mathematical skills and further developing middle leadership. Safeguarding is effective. You together with other leaders including the governors have ensured that there is a strong culture of safeguarding at Baschurch. You have ensured that safeguarding procedures are robust and are understood by the whole school community. Records demonstrate that appropriate actions to safeguard children have been taken by the school as well the outcome of referrals. Designated safeguarding leads follow up any actions needed from external agencies, in a timely manner. The children, through their involvement in the ‘Shropshire Safer Schools’ project, have undertaken site inspections to ensure that the school is safe. Leaders ensure that all staff and governors receive regular training and updates which reflect the needs and the context of the school. Inspection findings You have devised a range of effective systems and procedures to track, analyse and respond to trends in pupils’ achievement. You meet with teachers regularly to discuss the progress of individual pupils and groups of pupils. You are quick to address any underperformance and identify appropriate interventions which support pupils to catch up with their peers. You ensure that teachers’ assessments of pupils’ work are accurate through carefully planned moderation meetings with your partner school and with other schools in your local area. Teachers assess pupils’ understanding in English and mathematics frequently and ensure that any misconceptions or gaps in learning are addressed as quickly as possible. Intervention groups are set up on a daily basis to cover a variety of concepts closely matched to the pupils’ needs. As a result, the majority of pupils are able to keep up with their peers. Reading is given a high priority in the school. During the inspection, parents came into school for a ‘Drop everything and read session’. Parents value this opportunity and accompany their child to listen to a story. This has helped pupils to develop a love of reading and allows them to access different genres of stories which they may not have previously chosen. Early years provision is strong. Adults model language well. As a result, children in the Reception class are articulate, with the majority being able to speak in sentences and explain their ideas. During the inspection, the children were engaged in an activity to count Pirate Pete’s gold coins. They were effectively challenged to count coins which could not be moved. The children identified different strategies to make sure that they counted correctly. For example, they suggested that the coins could be ‘ticked’ so that they knew which ones had been counted. A wide range of resources and good-quality activities are planned, both indoors and outdoors. Children engage fully in their learning and remain on task for long periods of time, exploring their own ideas as well as those which are planned by staff. Leaders have made changes to the way in which phonics is taught across the early years and key stage 1. In the early years, children are encouraged to use their phonics to read and write at every opportunity. Many children are able to orally blend different letter sounds and segment to read and write simple words. Children had used their phonics to write a ‘healthy shopping list’ for Pirate Pete. They were able to read their list accurately. As a result of high-quality teaching, a greater proportion of Year 1 pupils achieved the expected standard in the phonics screening check and there was a significant increase in the proportion of pupils achieving the expected standard in writing at the end of Year 2. You have a new team of middle leaders who are extremely keen to be part of the future development of the school. They are being well supported by senior leaders and have a good understanding of the priorities for their areas of responsibility to improve outcomes for pupils. However, because they are new to their roles, they have not yet had the opportunity to evaluate the impact of the changes they have made. Mathematics has correctly been identified as a priority for development. Clear plans are in place to further improve the teaching of mathematics across the school. The main focus of this work is to ensure that pupils develop a deeper understanding of mathematical concepts to improve their reasoning and problemsolving skills. During the inspection, mathematics lessons were observed. In a key stage 2 class, pupils were expected to use their problem-solving skills to be a ‘smart shopper’. They had to decide which supermarket offers gave the best value for money. Pupils were required to use the four main mathematical operations to find their answer. Work in this instance was clearly differentiated to meet the needs of all pupils as well as providing appropriate challenge. However, in some lessons work did not always match the needs of all pupils. This is slowing the progress for some pupils, especially those groups of pupils with lower prior attainment. For example, when learning about tens and units, lower prior attaining pupils were encouraged to develop their understanding using concrete resources. At times, they were moved on too quickly to record their work without having sufficient understanding to be successful. Leaders have close links with their partner school within the federation. This has allowed staff from both schools to work together and effectively share best practice to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment across the federation. As a result, staff are having additional opportunities to further develop their expertise both in the classroom and as a subject leader. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: the teaching of mathematics is further improved to meet the needs of all pupils middle leaders are further developed to enable them to effectively evaluate improvements and their impact on pupils’ outcomes. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the director of education for the Diocese of Lichfield, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Shropshire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Michelle Johnstone Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, I met with you and the deputy headteacher to discuss and agree the key lines of enquiry for the inspection. I scrutinised a range of documents, including your assessment analysis, school self-evaluation and your school development plan. I conducted a learning walk throughout the school with you and the deputy headteacher. I talked to pupils throughout the inspection about their learning and met with a small group of pupils. I observed pupils’ behaviour in lessons and around school. Together we looked at pupils’ books and reviewed the quality of learning in mathematics across the school. I met with the school’s business manager to review the school’s single central record. I met with you and the deputy headteacher to review child protection logs and other documents relating to safeguarding arrangements in your school. I held a meeting with two governors, including the chair. I also met a representative from the local authority. I met with parents on the school yard and reviewed the 52 responses to Ofsted’s online Parent View survey. I took account of the 17 responses to the staff questionnaire.